nting
livery, who played for him while he was dining according to the custom
he had known at the French court during his exile. Place was grudgingly
yielded to the violin by friends of the less insistent viol. Butler, in
Hudibras, styled it "a squeaking engine." Earlier writers mention "the
scolding violin," and describing the Maypole dance tell of not hearing
the "minstrelsie for the fiddling." Thus all along its course it has had
its opponents and deriders as well as its friends.

The soft-toned viol had deeply indented sides to permit a free use of
the bow, was mostly supplied with frets like a guitar, and had usually
from five to seven strings. Its different sizes corresponded with the
soprano, contralto, tenor and bass of the human voice. An extremely
interesting treble viol much in vogue in the eighteenth century was the
viola d'amore, with fourteen strings, the seven of gut and silver being
supplemented by seven sympathetic wire strings running below the
finger-board and tuned in unison with the bowstrings, vibrating
harmoniously while these are played. A remarkably well preserved
specimen of this instrument, made by Eberle of Prague, in 1733, and
superbly carved on pegbox and scroll, is in the fine private violin
collection of Mr. D. H. Carr, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is one of the
few genuine viola d'amores extant. The owner says of it: "The tone is
simply wonderful, mellow, pure and strong, and of that exquisite harmony
that comes from the throne of Nature. I know of no other genuine viola
d'amore, and it compares with the modern copies I have seen as a Raphael
or a Rubens with some cheap lithograph." These modern copies are the
result of recent efforts to revive the use of this fascinating
instrument. A barytone of a kindred nature was the viola di bordone or
drone viol, so called because there was a suggestion of the buzzing of
drone-flies, or humble bees, in the tones of its sympathetic strings,
which often numbered as many as twenty-four. These violas recall the
Hardanger peasant fiddle of Norway, of unknown origin and antiquity,
whose delicate metallic under strings quaver tremulously and
mysteriously when the bow sets in motion the main strings.

At one time every family of distinction in Britain deemed a chest of
viols, consisting for the most part of two trebles, two altos, a
barytone and a bass, as indispensable to the household as the piano is
thought to-day. It was made effective in accompanying